Richard Woodfield, ‘Ernst Gombrich: Iconology and the “linguistics of the image”’, Journal of Art Historiography, Number 5 December 2011

This paper considers the question of the relationship between Gombrich's analysis of the psychology of perceptual representation, as found in Art and Illusion, and his approach to iconological analysis, as found in Symbolic Images. Whilst he made use of Karl Buehler's Organonmodell der Sprache, he failed to apply it consistently. Consequently there is further work to be done on his projected contribution to the study of the linguistics of the image.

Richard Woodfield: Ernst Gombrich and the problem of being a Viennese art historian in London

Background material for a lecture that was given in Melbourne, August 13th, 2010. Modified 31.10.2010, 7.03.2011 and 28.12.2011

Gombrich’s fame as an art historian rested upon his popular book The Story of Art but he didn’t see himself as a professional art historian. At the Warburg Institute, where he worked, he asserted his identity as a historian of Italian Renaissance culture and denied any attachment to academic art history. His publications take the form of a commentary on academic art historical practice, in the Viennese tradition of the Kunstgeschichtliche Anzeigen and Kritische Berichte. Many of the problems that he addressed originated in the milieu of Julius von Schlosser’s ‘Vienna School of Art History’. He was hostile to grand theories and master narratives and adopted a piecemeal approach to their critique. Although he wrote in a plain style, his thought was far from plain as it was embedded in a network of problems foreign to Anglophone scholarship. His work was profoundly alien to his English colleagues and frequently misunderstood.

Richard Woodfield, 'Gombrich and Panofsky on Iconology'

International Yearbook of Aesthetics, 12, 2008, 151-164

Richard Woodfield, 'Gombrich on Language and Meaning'

Published as a review of Gombrich's Tributes in the British Journal of Aesthetics 25(4) 1985, 389-93.

Richard Woodfield, 'Gombrich's Story of Art'

The British Journal of Aesthetics, , 1996, 36 (3), 313-6

Richard Woodfield, 'Gombrich's 1955 Lecture to the British Psychological Society'

Published in in Paula Lizarraga (ed.) E.H. Gombrich: In memoriam, Pamplona: EUNSA (Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, S.A.) 2001, 167-184

Encyclopedia entry on Gombrich

“Gombrich” in Stuart Brown (ed.) Thoemmes Continuum Dictionary of 20th C British Philosophers, Thoemmes Continuum: Bristol 2005, 332-5.

Richard Woodfield, Introduction to Gombrich on Art and Psychology

Published in Richard Woodfield (ed.), Gombrich on Art and Psychology, Manchester: MUP 1996

Richard Woodfield, 'Gombrich, Formalism and the Description of Works of Art'

The British Journal of Aesthetics, 34 (2), 1994, 134-45

Richard Woodfield, 'Gombrich on the Renaissance: Period or Movement?'

Published in Poreia: A Festschrift for Professor Dionysis A. Zivas, Athens: National Technical University of Athens - School of Architecture, 2007, 617-625

Richard Woodfield, 'Expression, Form and Kunstwissenschaft'

Published in Aesthetic Matters: Essays presented to Göran Sörbom on his 60th birthday ed. Lars-Olof Åhlberg and Tommie Zain, Uppsala University: Uppsala 1994, 154-163

Richard Woodfield, 'Representational Meaning'

Published in Iwony Lorenc (ed.), Odłamki, Pozbitych, Luster: rozprawy z filozofii kultury sztuki I etsetyki ofiarowane Pani Profesor Alicji Kuczyńskiej, Uniwersytet Warszawski: Wydzial Filozofii I Socjologii, 275-286

Review of Bjarne Sode Funch 'Psychology of Art Appreciation'

British Journal of Aesthetics, 1999, 39(2), 207-8

Review of John Willats, Art and Representation

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57:1 1999

Richard Woodfield, 'Pictorial Experience'

Published in Ananta Ch. Sukla (ed) Art and Experience, Westport: Praeger 2003, 71-90

Richard Woodfield, Review of Thomas Heyd and John Clegg (ed.) Aesthetics and Rock Art

caa.reviews 2006

Richard Woodfield, 'Thomas Hobbes and the formation of Aesthetics in England'

British Journal of Aesthetics 20(2) 1980, 146-52

Richard Woodfield, 'The Freedom of Shaftesbury's Classicism'

British Journal of Aesthetics 15(3) 1975, 254-66

Review of Philippe-Alain Michaud, Aby Warburg and the Image in Motion

caa.reviews 2004

Richard Woodfield, Review of James Elkins On Pictures and the Words that Fail Them

Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 1999

Richard Woodfield, 'Peetz and Wollheim on Gombrich's Illusions: a note'

British Journal of Aesthetics 28(3) 1988, 278-80.

Richard Woodfield, 'The Reality Effect: An alternative account'

Published in a special issue of the Polish philosophy journal Dialectics and Humanism edited by Harold Osborne, 1989

Encyclopedia entry on Michael Podro

“Podro” in Stuart Brown (ed.) Thoemmes Continuum Dictionary of 20th C British Philosophers, Thoemmes Continuum: Bristol 2005, 793-4

Richard Woodfield, Review of James Elkins Stories of Art

British Journal of Aesthetics  43(3) 2003, 336-8.

Review of Harrison, Wood and Gaiger 'Art in Theory 1648-1815: An Anthology of Changing Ideas'

Charles Harrison, Paul Wood, and Jason Gaiger (eds.) “Art in Theory 1648-1815: An Anthology of Changing Ideas”, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2003, 61(2), 201-3

Richard Woodfield, 'On the emergence of Aesthetics'

British Journal of Aesthetics 18(3) 1978, 217-227

Review of Christopher S. Wood, The Vienna School Reader

caa.reviews 2003

Richard Woodfield, 'Words and Pictures'

A critique of Norman Bryson's Word and Image, published in the British Journal of Aesthetics 26(4) 1986, 357-70.